Lace & Taffeta & A Bit of Squinting

My mother came to visit the other day, partly to see a group show I'm in that recently opened, and took these outfit photographs while she was here. (Thanks!)

I'm wearing:

• 1950's Neusteters lace and taffeta dress, eBay.
• Black Ambra bamboo tights.
• Pink 'Steve Madden' brogues.
• Pale pink beaded crochet beret, from Forever New (yes I am going to a special kind of hell!)
• Cue wool cardigan, secondhand.


The book in my hands is a copy of "The Secret Lives of People In Love" by Simon Van Booy. It's the kind of book that I will always carry with me, along with other beloveds like "A Literate Passion", "Notes of a Dirty Old Man", "I Capture The Castle", "La Batarde" and "The Secret Garden". There are certain books I love to pieces, and over the years my love for them becomes just as much about the specific book, the object, the pages I've dogeared and marked, the peeling spine; as much as it is about the writing.

Almost Pyjamas

I have to say it - while I love winter, it also makes me kind of miserable. And a hermit. The fact that I have been putting myself under a lot of stress lately does not help, of course. But I would prefer to blame the mercury.

This leads to a lot of outfits that are as close to pyjamas as I can bring myself to wear in public. I'm talking bed jackets, petticoats, leggings, leotards. Stretch cotton and lace. Long socks and vintage lingerie.

This first outfit is what I am wearing today. The shorts are actually a nylon garter belt from the sixties or seventies. I modeled the colour palette after one of my matryoshka dolls:



And the scarf, a fringed silk one from the 1940s, is also printed with nesting dolls:

I know. i look impressed, don't I?!





Wearing:

• American Apparel leotard.
• Black stirrup leggings.
• 1980's Charles David boots, eBay.
• 1940's fringe scarf, eBay.
• Vintage yellow nylon crepe tap shorts, eBay.
• Necklaces - Diva and gift from my mum.
• Vintage duck egg blue bed cape, eBay.
• Rings, from my mum.




This second outfit is warmer, more layered. I am wearing the slips I usually wear to bed, along with a recent acquisition, a H&M Garden Collection rosette jacket.



Details.


Wearing:

• 1940's accordian pleat slip.
• 1960's white lace slip.
• Black stirrup leggings.
• 1980's Charles David boots.
• H&M Garden Collection jacket, eBay.
• Black patent belt.
• Rings, from my mum.
• Necklaces - Diva and gift from my mum.


Winter days can be nice, though, when you have hours and hours to yourself - allowing very little responsibility besides small, quiet domestic things, listening to Van Morrison and drinking endless cups of coffee, the windowsills stained with brown rings. Yes, Winter definitely has its moments.